Catalyst: Equation
by TotalFunk
Summary: [Currently in proggress, any grammar mistakes will be corrected] After revolution breaks out in City17 it is up to two rival factions and an unlikely hero to reclaim order, and get out alive.
1. Chapter 1 2

CATALYST Equation

By: Brayden 'TotalFunk' Snow

An epic adventure of heroism and sacrifice based around the popular video game universe:

'Half-Life 2' by ValvE software

CATALYST: EQUATION

Start ...Transmission...

Phase 00 – Prologue

Location: Black Mesa Complex, Mohave Desert, New Mexico.

Date: December 28th 1999.

Scorching gales envelope the Black Mesa Research Complex in the Mojave Desert, Black Mesa, where the world ends, or begins, that is your choice. An unknowing M.I.T. graduate is to blame for this catastrophic disaster, but in the end, he will save us all and ultimately destroy an entire empire, however, he won't do it so single-handedly as first perceived.

"Good morning Gordon Freeman" A fellow theoretical physicist said cheerily to the steel faced 21 year old young man. Gordon walked by the man only just acknowledging him with a slight gaze… The scientist walked over to the nearby Security guard.

"Calhoun, have you noticed anything odd about Gordon lately? He is off task just about all the time and he paces around not breathing a word." The lowly picket looked up to the high paid gentleman with a doctorate degree in fields of science and medicine that he himself had in all probability had never heard of before.

"Uh, yes sir he seems a little bit out of the ordinary these days, maybe its cause he owes me so many beers, heh." the guard chuckled a little then turned back to his console and tapped away on the keys.

"If you don't mind I need to get back to work, we had a massive system crash early this morning, all our files are gone or displaced." A troubled expression appeared on the scientist's façade

"It's just one problem after another today isn't it." 3 floors and 300 ft. below ground Gordon entered the test chamber.

"All Personnel prepare for possible seismic quaking and power surges as the test chamber powers up and the tests commence. All security Personnel prepare for any chance of a resonance cascade." The PA system shut off and Dr. Eli Vance returned to his work station.

"Pfft resonance cascade?" One of the nearby scientists quaffed.

"Our Administrators have ensured our complete safety and well being. Even if there is a problem all we need to do is send that satellite into space and it wi-."

An unsettled Eli turned around to the scientist "And what if the Lambda Complex is compromised, then what, there will be no satellite to use, what else do our overseers have planned?"

"I don't know, the administration has that all figured out, don't ask me…"

"Power the mass converters and set the graviton generator to .55 rotation speed. Disengage security field…" Gordon climbed the ladder at the south end of the chamber and powered the rotors, in rapid succession a beam of ion charged particles shot down into the test chamber to power the mass driver which powered the high tech computers which would analyze the specimen.

"Set the rotors to 1.00"

"They won't hold at that!" one of the physicists protested

"Do it!"

"Setting… power seems… wait"

"What?"

The Test chamber began to shake, but just barely. "Nothing, just an unusual power spike"

"Well that's not just 'anything' is it?"

"It's no matter, powering the generators to 56"

The Head Scientist of the project, Dr. Kleiner, looked down into the test chamber through the tiny observation slit between two huge metal barriers each at least 5 inches thick which protected the control room.

"Gordon, the specimen is coming to you now" With a little nod Gordon strode over to the raising platform in the east side of the room, there was a direct path to the test chambers opening from where the specimen was delivered to him, that is where he was to insert the what seemed to be crystalline anomalous material.

The specimen was cradled in a small cart like buggy that Freeman would have to push into the opening. It seemed like the simplest of tasks, but only if it was. "Alright Gordon" Kleiner said in the calmest of voices

"Carefully, push the specimen into the opening and we can do the rest."

Gordon moved around to the back of the cart, admiring the twinkle the odd stone seemed to radiate. He grabbed the handles of the cart and began to walk, just like riding a bike but not so much. As he closed in on the huge glowing opening he tightened his grip, sweat formed on his brow but he disregarded it as an itch. Closer now, ever moving towards the unbearable heat and glow of the infernal machine which would prove to be the demise of all humanity. As the specimen slid into the opening like a well greased hinge, the heat increased and now the machine exploded into a greenish purplish like flash, the heat doubled stripping some of the hair from his eyebrows. If it wasn't for his Mark IV hazard suit he would be surely burnt alive.

"Oh my god, power levels are going off the scale!" one of the workers screamed. A green ball of energy grew above the huge machine and slowly became brighter and brighter until it flashed light brighter than the sun itself, completely blinding Gordon and sending him off his feet. A large discharge of energy launched seamlessly and perfectly through the tiny slit straight into the control room

The cries of the science team were quickly silenced by a booming sound and plum of smoke which trickled from the opening, flames now grew in the rafters of the chamber, the orb of energy was growing so hot it was melting steel to a liquid state. The terrifying contraption was now emanating a deafening whirring sound which grew impossibly louder by the second until another huge discharge of energy shook the facility to its core, crumbling the structure all around Gordon, and with a final burst of energy from the power of the machine itself, he was flung athwart the span of the test chamber and thrown into a wall, slung over a railing and eventually crumpled to the ground, he let the darkness consume him…

**PART 1**

The Combine Dominion

January 1st 2000 –

March 7th 2028

Phase 1.0 – The Seven Hour War

Location: United Nations, New York, NY, United States.

Date: January 1st 2000.

The second the heavens tore open in the very first portal storms, we were doomed. The relentless Combine Empire with the help of the greedy Administrator of Black Mesa, Dr. Wallace Breen, found there way to earth after the Black Mesa disaster, code named the "Resonance Cascade". That fateful day in the test chamber would prove to make all the difference in the world, as the experiment went terribly wrong the test chamber emitted huge amounts of energy, bending the state of space and time itself. Portals to what seemed to be an alien world opened up all over the Black Mesa Complex, the savage beasts (creatures from the border world "Xen") emerged and slaughtered absolutely everyone and everything in there sight. As the Lambda complex (the Black mesa administration building) was compromised by an elite task force of government soldiers sent into contain the threat, one scientist survived and took up arms against them. He single handedly defeated a whole platoon of soldiers and launched the Lambda Satellite into space which, to our hero's knowledge, would fix the entire situation. This of course was planned by Dr. Breen, the Combine Empire had first made small bits of contact with him when the portal tests first started, they told him that if he fitted the Lambda Satellite with 'Portal Array' Technology they would come to earth and bestow peace and all the wonders of a far advanced race to the billions of earths inhabitance. Breen accepted with delight and greed within his eyes. This would prove to be the downfall of the entire human race, as soon as the combine arrived they began destroying every major city they could find until only rubble and ashes remained. Of course the Combine was not insane, they did still leave multiple towns and settlements for them to colonize and feed off of. The worlds' armies attempted to withstand the brute force of the Combine but the alien races forces of half machine half organic 'Synth' war machines proved too incredibly hard to defeat. The useless human resistance lasted only seven hours, the longest seven hours in all of history to most who lived during the time. The grandest resistance force however occurred at the United Nations building in New York.

"Quickly Prime Minister the President has already been evacuated and we need to get you out NOW!" Hollered one of the U.N. soldiers, a huge Synth Gunship appeared out of seemingly thin air above the resistance fighters as they scrambled to the helipad on the roof. The gunship became aware of its surroundings and pivoted 360 degrees to face the hostile troops and what appeared to be a man of great importance. As the gun ships plasma cannons charged and prepared to fire, a pair of F-16 Falcons ambushed it from behind firing multiple stinger missiles towards the creature to have it shoot them down with ease.

"Shit!" cursed one of the pilots "We can't touch the freaking thing!"

"Quickly switch over to laser guided missile control pilot!" Commanded the veteran wing man;

"We can guide the missiles past its chain guns and hit it in its blind spot; those guns only have a 60 degree turn radius on them, if we can outmaneuver its guns we can take this bitch down!"

"Sure about that Cap?"

"Your damn right I'm sure!" Boasted the Captain

"Roger, switching to laser guided missiles."

The pilots swung back around the ship and unloaded a pair each of AIM-120 AMRAAM air to air missiles and guided them around the gun ships head and tail.

One of the armaments struck the Synth in its side, the half metal half organic horror whelped with pain as what seemed like blue machinery oil dripped from the wound of what appeared to be a cracked dome of some sort on its side (an eye?).

"Ha-ha take that mother fu-"

"Hey don't get to cocky now kid, that thing still isn't going down, focus on your task at hand!" The Vet strongly advised.

"Roger sir lets take this thing out"

Meanwhile in the street Jacob Zanier and Frederick Lambert ran amongst the crumbling buildings and chaos. The Combine controlled the sky but hadn't grasped any foothold on the ground, not yet anyway.

"God what are these things!" Jacob inquired to his best friend, Fred.

"I really, really have no clue. This must be the damned apocalypse. These things don't seem to be fully machine, there actually alive! God has sent them to punish us!" Fred cried.

"Don't get to deep there just yet, friend." Jacob nervously joked.

"But seriously they ARE alive, look how they move!" Frederick persisted "They almost have the shape of a whale you know? They have there head at the front which carries the guns. And they have a wide body with domes and glowing lights on it which I have no idea what would do… Then they have fins and a huge propeller at the back of the body. There machine and organic all mixed into one, fascinating!"

"Well I say dangerous!" Jacob cautioned "We should get inside before more co-

In an instant a huge explosion lit the sky and the flaming debris of the gunship fell to the earth below, narrowly missing Jacob and Fred…

"Holy shit!" Fred hollered excitedly. "Did you see that it was like all KABOOM AND BROOAWW! It screamed in pain did you see that!"

"Calm down there, we should get inside now, there are shelters set up in the east quarter of the city near the ground zero memorial." Jacob pulled Fred away from the flaming debris.

"Heh" Fred snickered "After this I have a feeling there will be more than one memorial in this crazy city…"

The time was currently 2:51 PM when Fred and Jacob reached the camp. The time was now 7:49 PM. This was it, The Combine were about to send in there final wave of troops, and the most terrifying at that…

Jacob was stirred awake by a sound, the sun had set now and the fighting had quieted down. There seemed to be some eerie light shining through the cracks of the tent. He stepped out of his tent to be shocked and awed by a huge glimmering sphere in the sky.

"What the hell is that?" Jacob overheard one soldier

"I don't know!" Said another

The iridescent orb began to pulsate in the dark sky, glimmering with all the light of the heavens compacted into one tiny flickering globe. Soldiers and civilians alike began gathering as the sphere slowly descended from the sky.

"God, it's so beautiful..." One citizen dopily whispered into Jacobs's ear.

The man proceeded to walk into the aligned path of the descending sphere.

"Move imbecile! Who knows what will happen if you get caught in that thing!" One soldiers screamed at the man.

The man continued walking with glazed over eyes into the sphere and as soon as an inch of him came in contact with the energy he disappeared in a blinding flash.

"What the hell happened?" A woman screamed, shielding her two young children's eyes

"I don't know! Stand back!" A soldier commanded the densely packed crowd

With that multiple people suffered the same hypnotized effects the other man had suffered; Jacob could even feel the drug like symptoms slowly taking hold over he himself. He found the he lost almost all control of his nerves and nearly wet himself as he lost complete control over his entire body; he was slowly being drawn into the shining siren from the sky.

"Aaah what the?" Jacob gasped allowed.

He looked around and observed Fred being drawn in as well. What treachery was this bestowed upon them? Jacob was now only a few feet away from the orb and was panicking, what was waiting him on the other side of, whatever this thing was! He caught himself swearing at the top of his lungs, amongst the other deafening screams of all around him. Out of the darkness behind the camp appeared 3 monstrosities that could not be imagined by any person in that time, they were once again "Synthed" With part machine part organic parts, only this time it was on a grand scale. The towering terror stood upon three tripod like legs with a small head like body at the top of its 3 skewer like appendages, it was at least 40ft tall. It emitted the same metallic whirring sound the Synth Gun ships howled, did these things have feelings, and do they even have minds? If they did, its one emotion was pure anger and the will to destroy all humans, they quickly began cutting down the crowd that was not moving into the sphere, these things were herding them into whatever the hell was before them.

As Jacob was sucked into the sphere he experienced every feeling a human being could feel at the same time without there nerves overloading, he had feelings of anger mixed with happiness and absolute wonder. However he could not even imagine what terror and pain he would suffer and what would lie ahead of him, on the other side…

Phase 2.0 – Keades

Location: Unknown

Date: Unknown

The circular room... The ten doors... Jacob didn't know how long he was locked up. He was electrocuted, exposed to radiation, cut into pieces... To him it wasn't an operation, it was torture. He kept count of the days for the first month until his watch broke. His room was a small square. He could barely fit in it himself. After a week he started to talk to his watch. It was the only sound he heard, the ticking. When it broke though, there was only silence. He would sit on the cold stone all day and night. The darkness engulfed him. It was pitch black... Just silence... and darkness...

Every so often a slit would open in the wall and some sort of gruel would be forced through it, not even in a bowl or anything. Jacob tried to cup as much as he could in his hands to nourish himself but it was a useless attempt, overtime the slop would come out of different holes, it was all a game to his captors by this stage in time and he hadn't cared much to play.

He was trapped in his room... for days... weeks... he wouldn't see light. Only when he was taken to have another experiment done on him was when he saw the door open. One time when being taken out he saw them take the deformed body of the person who was in room number three out. His arm was reaching up, like he was grabbing something above his head, but with further inspection it appeared that his elbow had been crudely grafted to the back of his skull. Jacob realized that they must perform different experiments on all of them, to get different outcomes. He soon noticed that the other people in the rooms were dieing now. After three it was six, then five, then two. He didn't know how much time had passed, but soon his mind was contaminated, rotted, and full of gases and other alien elements. It polluted his mind, it felt like years. It could have been one month or perhaps twenty. He was always in pain, his mind showed him images and soon he knew the form of the cell, he felt around and memorized every detail of it. His mind was always intoxicated, but after he grew used to the pain he started to find himself being free. He was able to know the freedom that he used to know and could feel it in his mind, while being in prison. It was like knowing both sides at once. Soon room four, seven and eight died too. Jacob was fascinated by their deaths, when he saw their corpses being dragged out of there cells he burst out laughing. He didn't stop even when the aliens started to beat him. Finally when they broke a rib or two and electrocuted him did they cease his laughter. Jacob knew that he had been gone now for at least two years, and his mind had gotten used to the alien drugs. At this point he realized that the person in room nine was breaking a small hole into his room. They would talk all the time, about their old lives... and what they thought about the person in the next room, a woman, who by description, was also hideously deformed. It was not long after they met did she die. And when that happened, again Jacob would not stop laughing. But this time he went for hours, at least ten. It was then did he understand the truth about everything. God, the World, Humans, Aliens. And on that day the scientists, no… butchers… had finally finished their research and made the FIRST, working Human Synth.

After an undocumented amount of days, Jacob was awoken to a huge screeching sound, by now he could care less if they came to mutilate him then sew him back up, he had experienced so much life was just a blur, one dark, agonizing blur. Instead the door to the chamber was not opened up, instead the room lit up with grand intensity and brilliant heat, burning Jacobs face as he tried to fight the feeling of floating upward. In an instant he was blinked away to another empty room but this time there were huge spotlights focused directly on him. This was the only time Jacob could see what he had become. His arms and torso were fitted with small tubes and plates of rusty metal that had become exceedingly bloody over the past years, his legs were completely gone and fitted with entirely cybernetic ones and his chest had a huge hole in it, obviously sealed but noticeable to anyone and anything. He felt his face and found it was cold and dry, the skin flaking off in his hands. Underneath this small epidermis of skin lay cold, yet surprisingly warm steel. He felt his eyes to his surprise were not even there; instead his eyes had been replaced with more unnatural metal and formed into little holes surrounded by metal plating that surrounded the curvature of his forehead, he couldn't even see straight out of them and his eyes (If you want to call them that) stung with extreme pain as he adjusted himself to the bright new surroundings. What the hell had these creatures turned him into?

Within a few minutes of sitting in the middle of the room a booming voice came on over some sort of intercom system, the language was foul and absolutely Un-recognizable like a scratched record CD, but unforgettable, the voice was crackly and hoarse with the odd hiss and slither. Jacob situated himself next to a reflective surface (the shiny metal plating on the walls, which seemed to make up the entire facility) and gazed at himself, feelings of absolute grief and sadness washed over him but he shed not a single tear. Over the intercom the voice sounded like it was getting mad at someone (something?) and then barked an order. Within seconds a spike came out of no where and jabbed Jacob in the back of the head, he sat twitching as countless billions of years worth of history ran through his mind and stored themselves neatly in his brains dendrites, as this happened the feelings he had once taken for granted had been stolen away and were replaced by only one thought – To Serve The Combine Empire and crush Anyone and anything that stood in his way - Jacob began laughing uncontrollably.

Thanks for reading; I'll post some new chapters very soon!


	2. Chapter 3 4

Phase 3.0 – "Welcome, welcome to City17"

Location: Train Station 51A, City17, Russia.

Date: March 5th 2028

"Citizen, Move along!" Mathew Adams was shoved off his seat by a local Civil Protection officer and thrown to the floor along with his luggage. "Go on move it!" It barked. 28 years after the 7 hour war the world was under complete Combine domination and control. Shortly after the war the Combine began collecting humans for gruesome and terrible experiments, trying to morph them into half human half machine super soldiers. The process of turning a human being into a Combine slave was a horrific experience. First, most of the human fluids, blood, plasma, and almost every gland or fluid producing organ in the body (this included the reproductive organs) was removed and replaced with machinery and artificial organs for ultimate efficiency, then comes the brain and free will. To turn a human being into a completely loyal soldier willingly to sacrifice themselves at anytime was a hard task indeed. The Combine started by torturing you into submission, then if you still did not agree to there terms… they tortured you some more, after they would open up your mind (literally) and fill it with propaganda and lies, along with the history of the Combine world, they also fitted your brain with micro chips that allowed you to receive instant orders from the Citadel or nearest Nexus – The Combines Citadel is a colossal mechanical tower in the middle of City17 that stretches at least 1000 ft into the air and serves as there main fortress, a Combine Nexus is a HQ for all nearby CP (Civil Protection) units or Combine soldiers - The stages of augmentation varies from the tasks the unit will be performing, Combine soldiers have further muscle transformation for strength and much more neural implants for quicker reaction times. Combine Elites have every thing in there body stripped and become a walking, living, breathing, robot. They are unstoppable. The lowest form of augmentation however is a Civil Protection officer, they implant micro chips into your brain that you could receive orders from, which is all, yet the downside is that they conduct the dirty jobs…

Mathew scrambled to his feet and grabbed his luggage.

"Sorry, sir, no problem here" Matt groveled as he backed off the train into the station.

"Go on, move it." The CP officer gave him a swift whack to the back with his stun stick, thankfully off; Matt grabbed the back of his head and stumbled down the stairs into the dense crowds exiting the train.

"Welcome, welcome to City17" began

Dr. Breen on the huge television monitors all over the city, "You have chosen or been chosen to relocate to one of our finest remaining establishments, so fine in fact I myself have chosen to live here myself." Mathew continued walking along the street as Breen prattled on about the future for mankind being secure for the human race now that they were suppressed by the combine, Matt begged to differ.

"No! Please! NO!" A citizen across the street ran to Matt, blood trickling down his face "Please, they have taken her! You need to help me!"

Matt attempted to ignore him as any concern aroused by the combine would mean a week in the detention center or worse, a trip to Nova Prospekt, the combines' jail.

"Hold!" A CP ran up behind the man, electric baton armed and ready. The man hollered and attempted to back away but in an instance the CP had shoved the weapon through his neck, the man convulsed as the condensed electric energy surged through his body, he screamed with agony then collapsed to the ground… dead.

"Welcome to City17… Its safer here" The TV monitors went blank.

Phase 4.0 – CP 01

Location: The Citadel, City17, Russia.

Date: March 5th 2028

Keades was in his regeneration chamber when he received the message from the Citadel. A short quick input into his mind and he knows what was going on. The Rebels have become more than an annoyance now, and he has been ordered to assemble a small team of five, he not included, to take them down. He was to meet then a few minutes from now outside the Citadel. Their names are 023, 096, 437, 174 and 931. He personally knew 023 before the seven hour war by the name of Frederick Lambert but he was also turned into a Trans-human Overwatch unit. Keades' name was Jacob Zanier but after his gruesome transformation he was known as 'CP – 01' But he always had liked the name Keades, only a select few bothered to call him by this name, and that annoyed him, he would rather be accepted as an individual, not a number. As 023 passed by him in a different rail pod Keades remembered how they had stood on the street staring at the Combines machines overtaking the earth before there eyes, those memories were distant now… He entered a few alien symbols into a nearby control panel and was taken into his own personal rail pod and attached to the maze of rails that made up most of the citadel, the pod was only big enough for him and even then it was a tight fit, but it was home. The pod had come to a halt at the dark energy teleport of the citadel, the cocoon opened and Keades stepped out.

"Whenever your ready 01" A soldier said to Keades as he adjusted his helmet and engaged his respirator.

"Ready" He said in monotone, his voice now muffled through the mask and coming out scratchy from the internal microphone.

"Engaging entanglement device" The soldier tapped at a control panel and in a flash of light Keades was transported outside to be greeted by the other units in his squad.

"23, have them bring the land ripper around front, were going to need all the help we can get." Keades commanded.

"Roger" 23 said obediently

"And 96 secure my AR2 pulse rifle from the vehicle once it arrives with a full magazine."

"Yes sir" 96 confirmed.

Soon enough the armor platted vehicle spun around the corner ripping up the soil with its iron clad wheels, hence the name 'Land ripper'. All perfectly calm they climbed aboard and got ready for the ride.

"Your AR2 and weapon of choice, sir" 96 handed Keades the energy rifle and a baton, electrified of course, he enjoyed the sizzling popping sounds that were made when he stuck one into a disobedient citizen.

A pang of sadness hit Keades as 023 walked by, not realizing how close they were before they became Combine, Keades didn't regret becoming a Combine though. He felt more capable now, perfecting his skills that he had tried so hard to master as a human. As he got into the drivers seat and as 23 got on the plasma cannon, he spent a split second of thought on his life before the Combine rule. But he quickly averted his attention back to the road. He didn't hate humans, but he loved to 'play' with them. Teasing them with his superior hand-to-hand combat and blade skills, it was great fun… The massive gates to the citadels main entrance opened up in a swift inward motion and Keades drove the vehicle out into the open streets of City17.

"Expect anti-citizen activity" Keades said, arming his AR2 from safety to automatic fire.


End file.
